Paying unpaid debts. Reformational antidotes for some of the challenges posed by Prosperity Gospel Theology

P.J. (Flip) Buys

School for Ecclesiastical Science, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Chairman of the Missions Commission of The World Reformed Fellowship

Abstract:Prosperity Gospel Theology has become one of the fastest growing religious movements in the world. Several international consultations in the last decade have dealt with it and provided constructive critique to understand it and offer correctives. However a more in depth study into the Gnostic and Mystic worldview that influenced the development of Prosperity Gospel Theology may be helpful to offer some antidotes for the challenges that Prosperity Theology has raised.

In the light of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this article endeavours to consider the view of God, the doctrine of the providence of God and its implications for the processing of suffering in the life of a believer, and the Hermeneutics of key Prosperity Gospel Theology preachers. Their underlying theology and worldview are then compared with some of the key theological principles that emerged in the theology of Martin Luther.

Introduction It has often been stated that “cults live off the unpaid debts of the church.” It implies that when churches neglect and deviate from key biblical truths, it may give rise to theological ideas and practices that overreact to voids that developed in churches and the spirituality of Christians. Spykman (1972:33) used this well-known phrase to explain a typical recurring trend in church history: When churches fail to proclaim the whole council of God with fervency and effectiveness, a seed-bed is created and a foundation laid for the growth of movements that are poor substitutes, since they inevitably preach a reductionistic gospel. Such movements then overemphasize some part of the truth as the whole truth of God’s Word and may neglect core aspects of the gospel (cf. also Downes, 2007; Gardner, 2011:1; Roberts, 1998:2; Van Baalen, 1962.)1 It has often happened that church leaders then draw from pagan and occult ideas and “baptize” it with Bible verses pulled out of context, leading to teachings that may eventually produce stumbling blocks in the progress of Christ’s kingdom. If applied to the Prosperity Gospel Theology (PT) 2 Kasera (2012) says that PT may also be a wakeup call to the evangelical churches especially on issues of faith. The question arises: To what extent have Christian churches deviated from important aspects of the gospel and thus created gaps that proponents of PT are trying to fill? Wilhelmsson (2017) formulates:

1 It seems that the phrase “paying unpaid debts” was originally from Dutch origin, but it cannot be established who was the first person to use it: “In de uitspraak: ‘sekten zijn de onbetaalde rekening van de kerk’ zit zeker een kern van waarheid. Als de kerk bepaalde gedeelten van de leer verwaarloost dan gaat vaak een sekte daar op onverantwoorde manier mee aan de haal.” (Geelhoed, 2016).2 This article will follow the practice - as it is done in the Lausanne Movement documents - to use the abbreviation PT when referring to Prosperity Gospel Theology (cf. Lausanne Theology Working Group, 2010; Lausanne Movement, 2014; cf. also Kasera, 2012).

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The so-called “Faith Movement” arose in the context of a Christianity that has lost much of her original message and practice. This must be recognized as true whether the church is viewed from the traditionalist wing or the charismatic/Pentecostal wing of Christendom.

Magezi and Manzanga (2016) pointed out how a lack of a compassionate proclamation and teaching of the providence of God in the midst of suffering, provided a seed-bed for the development and flourishing of PT in Zimbabwe. In his Master's Thesis, Kasera (2012), in his evaluation of the rapid growth of Prosperity Theology in the context of Namibia concluded that PT is flourishing because of the lack of church based community development and poverty alleviation as one of his findings.At an international consultation facilitated by the Lausanne Movement on ‘Prosperity Theology, Poverty and the Gospel’, in Atibaia, Brazil, Haakon Kessel (2014) made challenging statements in his report about PT in Europe, especially Scandinavia, on people belonging to the mainstream, national church, drifting away to PT type fellowships. The findings of his research are that they have a desire to experience God more tangibly, more real, to get an assurance of his existence. They want a more radical walk of faith. In that sense their walking out of mainline churches represent a silent critique of the traditional church. In interviews they expressed views that the state/national church became spineless, rationalistic and irrelevant. They have a longing for deeper fellowship, in praise and prayer.At the same international conference Freston (2014:1) delivered a paper in which he analysed the social factors that feed PT. He stressed the point that we need to understand and empathize with adherents of PT before the fallacies are exposed. He states:

This is good sociological practice, but also good Christian practice. The ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes, to see things in the round, to find good where none seems to exist… these are Christian virtues. They don’t mean losing our critical sense, but putting it on hold. In the end, we might be just as critical… but perhaps better informed in our criticism.

It is indeed true that all religious expressions are influenced and shaped by historical settings and socio-cultural contexts. In the final recommendations of the Lausanne Global Consultation in Atibaia, it was stated that

… we recognize that we have often been too quick to judge and recognize that we have often denounced the excesses of PT while failing to denounce the ways a therapeutic or self-help gospel has replaced the supremacy of Christ in many of our churches (Lausanne Movement 2014: 2).

I fully embrace the acknowledgement made by the Atibaia Lausanne consultation that it is not enough simply to claim that ‘the Bible is on our side’, since Christians with different convictions, who would also affirm the authority of Scripture, will make the same claim, pointing to numerous texts that they believe support their practices. (Lausanne Movement 2014: 3). It will be more fruitful to go beyond the Bible verses being used and try to understand the historical backgrounds, worldviews and sociological motives of PT proponents in order to offer alternatives for consideration.This article is an effort to do what is stated in the concluding sentence of the Atibaia consultation:

We trust that it will inspire biblical preaching, teaching and living that confronts the abuses of Prosperity Gospel Theology, and that it will encourage Christians to lead ethical lifestyles that indeed make us bearers of a better hope, the hope we have in Christ Jesus. (Lausanne Movement 2014:3).

It is a pity that the Atibaia consultation did not consider how the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and the providence of God may offer some corrective for the weaknesses of PT. It is not possible to describe and evaluate all aspects of PT within the limitations of this article. I will endeavour to compare the view of God, and the teaching of the providence of God in the midst of suffering, of proponents of PT with theological tenets in the theology of Martin Luther that influenced thought patterns of the 16 th century Reformation on these issues. In order to understand the deviations of Prosperity Gospel Theology its historical roots will first be considered.

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Background and summary of Prosperity Gospel Theology

ExtentSeveral researchers (Sarles 1986:525; Fee 1984: 39, Hollinger 1988: 145) established beyond doubt that PT is a broadly based, worldwide movement with influence on both charismatic and noncharismatic churches and denominations. Among these researchers there is broad consensus that PT certainly has a charismatic flavouring to it, but is by no means limited to Pentecostal or New Pentecostal churches and actually did not originate in Pentecostal circles. The movement radiates a strong influence of the existentialism of the present age, with a heavy emphasis on human experience to authenticate the Christian faith. It also borrows heavily from the materialistic emphasis of affluent, suburban Christianity.Some of the prominent personalities who have strongly propagated PT in the past 5 decades include Kenneth Hagin, pastor of the Rhema Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, founders of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas; Bob and Marte Tilton, founding pastors of the Word of Faith Church, Farmers Branch, Texas; John Osteen, pastor of the Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas; Jerry Savelle, evangelist and former associate of Kenneth Copeland; Charles and Frances Hunter, faith healers and founders of the City of Light, Kingwood, Texas; The New Apostolic Reformation (Ocaña 2014); Korean minister, Paul Yonggi Cho; Joseph Prince from Singapore (Van der Breggen 2015:1) Ulf Ekman from Sweden and his Word of Life church and organisation (Kessel 2014:2) and many from Africa and Latin America.In July 2007, both Christianity Today and The Christian Century published articles that pointed out the global influence of PT (Glifford 2007; Phiri & Maxwell 2007).This observation is confirmed by a Time magazine poll, which determined that in the U.S., “17% of Christians” who were surveyed “said they considered themselves” to be part of the “Prosperity Theology” movement (Van Biema 2006). Additionally, a “full 61% believed that God wants people to be prosperous”. On the African continent, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey in 2006 in which individuals were asked whether God would “grant material prosperity to all believers who have enough faith” and whether “religious faith was ‘very important to economic success’” Roughly 9 out of 10 participants from Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya agreed wholeheartedly. (Phiri & Maxwell 2007). Magezi, and Manzanga (2016) made it clear how widespread the trends of PT are in Zimbabwe and Kasera (2012) of the rapid growth of PT in the context of Namibia.

Historical originsMcConnell, (1995) who holds to charismatic convictions himself, has conducted research which is extremely illuminating in establishing the origins of PT. While Kenneth Hagin is seen by many as the father of the PT movement, McConnell in his research documents Hagin’s extensive plagiarism of E. W. Kenyon. McConnell sums up:

Whereas Hagin appears to have copied only occasionally from sources other than Kenyon, he has plagiarized Kenyon both repeatedly and extensively. Actually, it would not be overstated to say that the very doctrines that have made Kenneth Hagin and the Faith Movement such a distinctive and powerful force within the independent charismatic movement are all plagiarized from E. W. Kenyon. (McConnell 1995: 3-13. Cf. also Jackson 1989:16; Johnson 1995: 143; Hollinger 1988:142).

Gnostic-metaphysical OriginsThe immediate origins of PT over the past 5 decades can be traced to the USA and was later conveyed to other countries around the world, promising people health, wealth and happiness. It actually developed out of the New Thought Movement that began around 1895. New Thought writers include Phineas Quimby, Ralph Waldo Trine, Norman Vincent Peale, Ernest Holmes, and Charles Fillmore (Jones & Woodbridge 2011:231-232). Among the prominent pioneers of the New Thought Movement in the USA were Mary Eddy Baker, the founder of Christian Science. She developed a trend of thought similar to that of the pioneers of New Thought in that her Christian Science basically represents a denial of the material world (Tucker 1989:149).

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McConnell’s research proved that the dominating influence on Kenyon’s theology was the Gnostic-metaphysical cults which abounded at the turn of the 19th century in the USA. Kenyon attended the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston, during the last decade of the nineteenth century, a college which was at the time immersed in the Gnostic-metaphysical cults, and the underlying New Thought. New Thought developed out of the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, and the Theosophical ideas of Blavatsky and Olcott as a spiritual movement in the 19th century, along the lines of the teachings of Phineas Quimby. Some of the key underlying principles of New Thought are the Pantheistic worldview of the existence of an omnipresent God immanent in nature; universal life, intelligence, and energy, underlying and pervading the universe, finding expression in every created entity. (Allen, 1908: 359) The spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect.Morrison, (1999:2) unveiled that the original Theosophical Society was founded in New York on November 17th, 1875, by the Russian medium and adventuress Helena Petrovana Blavatsky and Col. Henry Steel Olcott (an associate of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science). The leaders of the New Thought movement had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes as such, in the conquering efficacy of courage, hope, and trust, and a correlative contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously precautionary states of mind. The trouble is in the mind, for the body is only the house for the mind in which it dwells. Therefore, if your mind had been deceived by some invisible enemy into a negative belief, it becomes some form of a disease, with or without your knowledge. It is interesting to see that one of the key leaders in the New Thought Movement, J. Allen, already published a book in 1903 with the title From Poverty to Power (Allen 1903) and in 1907 on The Path to Prosperity, (Allen, 1907).Quimby embraced these ideas and formulated his healing methodology in this way:

By my theory or truth, I come in contact with your enemy, and restore you to health and happiness. This I do partly mentally, and partly by talking till I correct the wrong impression and establish the Truth, and the Truth is the cure. (As quoted by Hollinger 1988: 140).

McConnell (1995:19) pointed out the clear influence of the New Thought metaphysical cults in Kenyon’s work. While he claims to remain resolutely Christian, and indeed explicitly refutes some elements of the metaphysical cults, he in the same time often in the same breath as his rebuke, asserts the foundational beliefs of these cults. Living at a time when the New Thought metaphysical cults were growing rapidly, Kenyon’s ‘Christian’ response was a ‘Christianized’ form of the metaphysical cult. Because of the failure of the mainline churches to produce signs and wonders, Kenyon was keen to redress an anti-supernatural tendency. He sought to establish a teaching which provided Christians with all the benefits of the metaphysical cults, while continuing to profess basic Christian beliefs. The result was prosperity theology, which is, with a very few trappings, the theology of the present-day Word of Faith and PT movement!

Gnostic worldview backgroundIt is important to understand the Gnostic dualistic worldview inherent in these metaphysical New Thought cults, that became a major influence on the worldviews of proponents of PT.Gnoticism is used here to refer to the religious systems exemplified by the “Great Gnostics” which flourished from the 2nd to the 4th cen. A.D., such as those of Cerinthus, Manander, Saturninus, Valentinus, Basilides, Ptolemaeus and the ones contained in the apocryphal gospels of Judas (Iscariot), Philip and Thomas. Several researchers unveiled the conceptual links of Gnosticism to Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Hellenistic philosophy. The movement has basically dualistic and syncretistic roots and spread throughout the ancient Near East immediately before and after the time of Christ (Helmbold, 1975). It became best known through the apologetic writings of Irenaeus, a second-century Greek church father, who described certain groups of heretics as the “gnostic heresy” and Hippolytus of Rome (Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A. C. Coxe, 1886:47). Since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls in 1945 and the

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translation, popularization and publication of them, (Attridge & Pagels, 1996; Robinson & Smith, 1996) a floodgate of publications about Gnosticism came on the market. Two collections of essays have been edited by K.-W. Tröger, one on Gnosticism and the New Testament, and the other on Gnosticism, the Old Testament and Early Judaism (Yamauchi 1984: 22).Modern times witnessed the resurgence of Gnosticism in worldviews of the Enlightenment, Hegel's idealism, some existentialist currents, Nazism, Jungian psychology, and the New Thought Theosophical Society. All of these contributed to this resurgence and prepared the way for dominant thought patterns in PT (Wright, 2009). For the engagement with core thought patterns in PT it is important to recognize how it relates with Gnostic worldviews.

Gnostic worldviews blended with Charismatic PentecostalismMcConnell did not sufficiently point out other influences on PT besides Kenyon. For example, Kenyon rejected tongues as being altogether too subjective an experience, while for the Faith Movement, speaking in tongues today is often stressed as a necessary sign that one has been baptized in the Spirit. Charismatic Pentecostalism has also left its mark on PT, especially so because such are the roots of many of those in the PT Movement today. Thus, while the original doctrines are undoubtedly those of Kenyon, very often the current practices are mostly those of the charismatic Pentecostals (Hollinger 1988:140).The theme of prosperity is found early on in the healing revival movement. In the 1950s the controversial A.A. Allen began to accentuate the financial blessing theme. In 1963 Allen claimed to have received a revelation directly from God. In a personal encounter with God, God said to him:

“I am a wealthy God! Yea, I am not poor … But I say unto thee, claim my wealth in thy hand, yea, in thy purse and in thy substance. For behold, I plan to do a new thing in the earth!”(quoted by Hollinger 1988:140).

Key aspects of Gnosticism that also appear in the writings and sermons of Kenyon and the PT preachers will be indicated in the following paragraphs.

Experience the gateway to truthIn an article with the title The Heresy that Wouldn’t Die Jenkins (2007) said:

Though Gnostic sects faded in the early church, Gnostic ideas have had a long shelf life.

He then argues convincingly that key aspects of the Gnostic worldview and main themes survived, especially the idea of seeking a mystic ascent to God.For the Gnostics, knowledge of God is based on personal, intuitive, private and mystical experiences (Scholer, 2007). Gnostics believed that humanity is trapped in the material world and human body. In order to provide salvation, the ultimate God sent a redeemer, who navigated the journey from the Pleroma through the intermediary beings to earth. Inner personal experience is the only true knowledge.God is not in any way accessible to reason or rational understanding. Not doctrinal teaching, but a flight from the mind into pure reason free experience, is the way to God. Gnostics distinguish sharply between mind and spirit. We must escape from the prison house of the rational mind and explore our non-rational spirits if we are to know God and ourselves. The Apocryphal book of James puts it this way:

Hence become full of the Spirit, but be in want of reason, for reason (belongs to) the soul; in turn it is (of the nature of) soul (Williams 1996: 35).

In order to attain this non-rational state of consciousness Gnostics use chanting, often of nonsense words to disengage rationality and induce raw spiritual ecstasy (Bean, 2015). This flight from reason is revealed in the writings and rituals practiced by several proponents of the Word of Faith PT. As a result the Christ of experience replaces the Christ of Scripture as the centre of key figures of PT as it can be seen in videos of their sermons where personal experiences of contact with God are presented as having more weight than biblical and theological teachings (Rosebrough, 2015; Thompson, 2015).

Divine nature of the human soulOne of the core convictions of Gnosticism is that the human spirit is a spark of divinity encaged in a body of flesh. To know God, is ultimately identical to knowing your inner self as divine. In yourself there is a divine spark which your outward trappings like your upbringing and social context have squashed. The basic

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problem of evil is that man has forgotten his own divine nature. The function of Jesus is that He restores to us the knowledge of our divine self and awakens us to a sense of our own divinity. We ourselves become Christ’s through the spirit of enlightenment of our inner self (Wright, 2009).Man is composed of body, soul and spirit. The spirit is man's true self, a "divine spark," a portion of the godhead. In a tragic fall, man's true self, or spirit, was thrown into this dark world and imprisoned in each individual's body and soul.This Gnostic conviction is also widely proclaimed by adherents to PT. Paulk said:

“Until we comprehend that we are little gods, we cannot manifest the kingdom of God” (Paulk 1984: 97).

Hagin teaches that Adam was created equal with God – an exact duplicate of God, in the same class of being as Him, and can therefore stand in His presence without any sense of inferiority whatsoever (Hagin 1989: 35-36).Referring to the creation of man, Copeland (2016) adds: “God and Adam looked exactly alike.”In the words of Hagin (1980:14) the Christian is as much an incarnation of God as was Jesus of Nazareth.In PT Word of Faith mythology, Adam lost his privileges and status as a god. Man recuperates them through conversion to Christ. Benny Hinn (1990a) explains: “Christians are little messiahs. Christians are little gods”Elsewhere he says:

Are you a child of God? Then you're divine! Are you a child of God? Then you're not human! (Hinn 1990b)

Of himself Hinn says: I am a little messiah walking on earth,..... You are a little god on earth running around. Christians are little messiahs. Christians are little gods. (1990a)

Newman refers to this trend in the following way:Any well-thinking, discerning believer finds himself greatly alarmed when Kenneth Hagin claims that all Christians are “little gods” spawned by God just as a dog has a litter of puppies, or when Kenneth Copeland declares that when Christ called Himself the great “I Am,” in Copeland’s own words, “I say, ‘Yes, I am too!’ (Newman, 1997: 142).

The God concept in the teachings of Prosperity Gospel preachers proves to be the same as the pagan and Gnostic views of God. Pagan religions and Gnosticism split the difference between God and man, by reducing God to become more like a human and exalting man to the status of a god. Mythology, whether ancient or modern, invariably diminishes God to less than what He is, and exalts man to the same level as God (Geisler, 1999:576–581).At the Lausanne Global Consultation on “Prosperity Theology, Poverty and the Gospel” in Atibaia, José Daniel Salinas (2014) formulated the impact of PT’s view of God for Latin America in this way:

PT’s Christology has left our people with a powerless Christ. PT proposes a faith that we control, a deity we manipulate. This is similar to animistic or pantheistic religions where the gods exist to give us what we want because we perform some rituals which are supposed to appease them and to convince them to act in our favor.

Smalling (2010:33) in his book Prosperity Wounded Charismatics, summarizes as follows: Christian revelation, in contrast, brings man and God together in a relationship, while leaving both intact. The meeting point between God and man in Christianity is a mutual righteousness, that of Christ, credited to the believer’s account through faith in Jesus (Romans 3 & 4). No change in quality of existence or essence of being takes place in either God or man.

The Bible teaches union with Christ through the Spirit. Gnosticism and PT doctrine teaches joining with Christ though a mixing of our supposed divinity with his.In pagan thinking where gods are seen like human beings, people think that they have to manipulate gods with sacrifices and rituals to obtain health wealth and prosperity.That is why God revealed himself as totally different from the pagan gods when he said to his people according to Deuteronomy 10:17: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.”

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In paganism in Gnosticism, and with proponents of PT a progression takes place. First, a human is like a god. Then he is part god. Then he is a god. Ken Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Paul Crouch, Paula White and Benny Hinn, all openly state in their recorded sermons that we are little gods (Rosebrough, 2015; Thompson, 2015).

Visualisation and Positive ConfessionVisualisation and positive confession are of vital importance in PT and are inseparably linked together as one spiritual law. In his booklet, I believe in Visions, Hagin (1979a: 20) based his whole theology on the personal visional experiences he had of Jesus visiting and communicating with him. Hagin (1979b:23) then teaches that if believers want to be successful in their circumstances they must confess, and confess positively. In doing so, their words have power to create a positive reality.The use of a visualised Christ in order to enter an altered state of consciousness, also became a vital part of 'Inner Healing' techniques. This process of meeting a visualised 'Christ' in the imagination is a recurring theme in the writings of the Christian visualisers. It originated with Agnes Sanford (1897-1982. After publication of her book 'The Healing Light' (1947), her worldwide ministry had an enormous influence on the subsequent development of the use of healing in the Charismatic Movement. She later published 'The Healing Gifts of the Spirit'. She taught that “experience comes before theology,” and taught various visualisation techniques, teaching that one could forgive another's sins through visualisation (Sanford 1966: 100-113.).Another major influence in the use of this visualisation technique with the goal of ‘Inner Healing’ was Ruth Carter Stapleton, the sister of the former president of the U.S.A., Jimmy Carter. She packaged visualisation into a form of therapy which she called 'faith-imagination'. She recommended that people visualise, as vividly as possible, Jesus coming into their past experiences and taking charge of the seriously troubled and disturbing situation. In this process of faith imagination, with Jesus at the centre, deep healing inside the person occurs. As Jesus dominates the visualisation, persons are guided to experience freedom and allow themselves to become whole again (Abi & Malony, 1999:624).One of the prime reasons for the use of visualization in the imagination is to effect extraordinary changes in people’s lives and in their circumstantial environments through powerful visualisation of the desired change. A good example of this technique is the Charismatic Korean minister, Paul Yonggi Cho. In his book, The Fourth Dimension: The Key to Putting Your Faith to Work for a Successful Life. (1979), Cho develops a doctrine of prosperity through the use of 'mind-power' which any occultist would enthusiastically applaud. A simple perusal of his books reveals a theology which has been 'ripped off' from some primary teachings of New Gnosticism. Cho has devised a theory which he calls 'incubation'. He uses this to refer to a period of development which is needed in the imagination before a desired object can be physically manifested. He argues that because Scripture tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb.11:1), this substance must undergo a period of 'incubation' in what he calls the 'Fourth Dimension' 'before its usage can be full and effective'(Cho 1979: 9). His proof text for this occurs in Gen.1:2, where the Hebrew states that the Spirit of God was 'brooding' over the waters. Cho, claims this act of creation can be repeated through each Christian believer, who only has to visualise something in his or her mind's eye and it will become a reality, provided it is painted in sufficient detail. He puts it like this:

What becomes pregnant in your heart and mind is going to come out in your circumstances (Cho 1979: 31).

These developments made it clear that if we are not to drift into Gnosticism or New Gnosticism, or merely experience PT spirituality, we have to insist that God is not accessible to us through some mindless mystical mere emotional experience that bypasses or twists the truth of Scripture or annihilates the rational mind. God is accessible through Scriptural truth as grasped by a spiritual enlightened mind that although He has not been seen, “… you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Pet 1:8). Referring to the Westminster confession Hollinger (1988:145) warns that it is the enjoyment of God, not the glory of God, which seems to have captivated the hearts and minds of adherents to PT.

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New RevelationsAs part and parcel of their experienced based spirituality Gnostics claimed that they received guidance and inspiration from spirit guides, exalted beings from a higher spiritual realm who revealed mysteries to the spiritually receptive. Gnostics often appeal to private revelations and visions. For example the Gnostic apocalypse of Paul describes Paul’s alleged ascent into the different heavens culminating in the tenth heaven. There – according to this apocalypse of Paul - he obtained a record of the esoteric truths and learned things there which are not to be found in the New Testament (Laird, 2016).Thus Gnosticism was seen as an esoteric knowledge of higher religious and philosophic truths to be acquired by an elite group. They claimed that they were more enlightened than the Apostles. A Gnostic is one who has gnosis (a Greek word for "knowledge") — a visionary or mystical "secret knowledge" capable of joining the human being to the divine mystery. How do these “new revelations” surface in PT?In his booklet, Two Kinds of Knowledge, Kenyon (1942:20) falls into the typical Gnostic and mystic trap of using reason to deny the validity of reason. Information derived from our five senses, he terms "sense knowledge" and the correlation of that information is done by logic. But "revelation knowledge" comes directly to our spirit, bypassing both reason and the five senses. Kenyon believed that since God is spiritual, it is impossible to understand God or spiritual truth without this special "revelation.”In chapter 6 of his book McConnell (1995: 107-110) also provides evidence of the strong parallels between Kenyon’s and the metaphysical cults’ doctrines of revelation and Gnosticism in terms of Dualism, Antirationalism and Classification.Adherents to PT see faith as a mystical force that we use to manipulate situations to our advantage. In combination with our spoken words, faith becomes a catalyst to create our own reality. In the words of Hagin: “one must by-pass the brain to get into the things of God (Quoted by McConnell, 1995: 109).Copeland (1989:10) describes faith as a power force. It is a tangible force. It is a conductive force and has the ability to effect natural substance.In his evaluation of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) rapidly spreading in several Latin American countries, Ocaña (2014) observed that this blend of PT, according to which “God speaks directly today” means in concrete that: (1) The Bible is not enough or sufficient as the authority in what regards faith, doctrine and praxis; (2) The word of God is not limited by the canon that is expressed in the Scripture, but goes beyond it; and (3) God speaks today by other ways, that in the practice of the NAR are known as the “rhemas”, supposedly a fresh voice and that can in some cases be audible.In his qualitative empirical research in several countries in Latin America he always heard the same reasoning: “It is that you haven't experienced what we have experienced.” His conclusion is that the intention of the NAR is to substantiate their theological proposals in the experience for two possible answers: (1) Open the revelation of God, leaving behind the canon inherited; and (2) bring a new revelation, leaving behind the tradition or memory. Both answers, of course, endeavour to ensure that Christianity ceases to be “the religion of the Book” to make it the religion of experience, feeling and emotion. The “Sola Scriptura” is being replaced with “Sola Experience”.

Attitude to Scripture and valid HermeneuticsIn the Gnostic Nag Hamadi scrolls, dreams and visions are given the same or more authority than the Bible (Attridge & Pagels 1996: 75–76).Kittel et al (1964:564ff) proved that by and large, the religious evaluation of dreams is only on the margin of New Testament piety. The essential point of revelation is not to be found in dreams, but it lies in the historical self-demonstration of God, → ἀποκαλύπτω. “The dreams of Gnostics are something totally different and dangerous and morally suspect delusions (Jd. 8)”.Several authors have pointed out that the hermeneutics of the PT leaves much to be desired. In painting the Latin American picture of PT’s use of the Bible, Salinas (2014:4) puts it this way:

In postmodern hermeneutics the reader has control over meaning, that is, any text can mean whatever the reader decides. Until recently, finding the author’s intention has been the

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hermeneutical key for biblical interpretation. The idea used to be that you came to the Bible to find what God wanted to tell us, since God is the author of the Bible. However, PT has bought into today’s hermeneutical tendencies. What we hear in their preaching is an imposed meaning over the text, a meaning that supports the preacher’s ideas and agendas. People go to church thirsty for God’s words only to receive lies.

Sarles (1986: 339) wrote about the Hermeneutics of PT teachers Prosperity hermeneutics also leaves much to be desired. The method of interpreting the biblical text is highly subjective and arbitrary. Bible verses are quoted in abundance without attention to grammatical indicators, semantic nuances, or literary and historical context. The result is a set of ideas and principles based on distortion of textual meaning.

The fact that the biblical author’s original intent would have been plain to his original audience to whom the words were originally addressed in their context is seldom considered in PT preachers’ sermons and teachings. The PT preachers read their suburbanized culture of the late 20th century setting back into the text.A survey of the volumes of literature produced by the PT teachers yields numerous examples of such misinterpretations (Jones 1998: 81). An analysis of all such examples of misinterpreted texts would fall beyond the limitations of this article.

Proposal for some Reformational antidotes from Theology of Martin Luther

The sovereignty and providence of GodIn the light of the prevailing ideas in Gnosticism and PT that man is a little god , and that God can be manipulated with chanting and repetition of words as pointed out above, it may be helpful to reconsider the predominant views of God of Martin Luther and prominent 16th century Reformers.At the heart of Martin Luther’s theology was his understanding of God. (Henriksen, 2016) summarizes:

Luther’s understanding of God saturates his oeuvre, and in turn, this understanding is saturated by his doctrine of the justification of the sinner. God is the sovereign source and origin of all that is, and Luther develops his understanding of God in a manner that tries to safeguard this position in such a way that the personal relationship to God becomes the focus point for all he says.

The main traits in his understanding of God become apparent in two of his “classic” texts on the matter, the Large Catechism (Luther 1530a) and On the Bondage of the Will (Latin: De Servo Arbitrio, literally, "On Un-free Will"), that was his reply to Desiderius Erasmus' De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio or On Free Will. (Luther, 1984)Luther knew that Erasmus, more than any other opponent, had put his finger on the deepest issue at stake, namely whether human beings are so sinful that God’s sovereign grace must create and decisively fulfil every human inclination to believe and obey God (Piper, 2016).The sovereign omnipotence of God is a central tenet of Luther’s and reformed religion. For Luther and 16 th century reformers after him, the assertion of God’s absolute sovereignty over creation, and in providence, and grace is basic to biblical belief and biblical praise. The Sovereignty of God indicates the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the god-hood of God. To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; Luther translated Daniel 4:35 as:

gegen welchen alle, so auf Erden wohnen, als nichts zu rechnen sind. Er macht's, wie er will, mit den Kräften im Himmel und mit denen, so auf Erden wohnen; und niemand kann seiner Hand wehren noch zu ihm sagen: Was machst du? (Luther 2001).

Luther often states in his many publications that God works all in all. He is the sovereign source of reality, of goodness, and to God alone all honour is due. In his comment on Psalm 112:2 Luther praises the vast

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majesty of God and that Christians in their prayers, should constantly glorify and praise the Lord for everything He has created, and still maintains through his sovereign omnipotent providence (Luther, 1530b) He often made it clear that God can be God only if He is the only source of goodness. In explaining the 2nd and 3rd commandment he wrote:

Thus you can easily understand what and how much this commandment requires, namely, that man's entire heart and all his confidence be placed in God alone, and in no one else. For to have God, you can easily perceive, is not to lay hold of Him with our hands or to put Him in a bag [as money], or to lock Him in a chest [as silver vessels]. But to apprehend Him means when the heart lays hold of Him and clings to Him. But to cling to Him with the heart is nothing else than to trust in Him entirey. For this reason He wishes to turn us away from everything else that exists outside of Him, and to draw us to Himself, namely, because He is the only eternal good. As though He would say: Whatever you have heretofore sought of the saints, or for whatever [things] you have trusted in Mammon or anything else, expect it all of Me (Luther 1530a).

This fundamental conviction lasts through all controversies with and about Luther: he lays emphasis on the free, absolute sovereignty of God and his merciful acts of grace toward creatures who are full of sin and separated from him (Henriksen 2016). To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in Heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Ps 115:3). To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is “The Governor among the nations”, setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as it pleases Him best.Luther’s translation of Psalm 22:28,20 brings it out clearly:

Es werden gedenken und sich zum HERRN bekehren aller Welt Enden und vor ihm anbeten alle Geschlechter der Heiden. Denn des HERRN ist das Reich, und er herrscht unter den Heiden. (Luther, 2001).

Luther constantly expressed in explicit terms that the Lord reigns as king, exercising dominion over great and tiny things alike. God’s dominion is total: he wills as he chooses and carries out all that he wills, and none can stay his hand or thwart his plans. With regard to Romans 8:28 he explains that God even uses the sins of his children to work out the best for them as instruments in the coming of his kingdom. To prove his point he explains it from the history of the sins of the brothers of Joseph who sold him and that through the seduction of an adulterous woman he even ended in prison. Joseph saw God’s sovereign providential plan in all when he confessed: “Ihr gedachtet’s böse mit mir zu machen; aber Gott gedachte es gut zu machen, daß er täte, wie es jetzt am Tage ist, zu erhalten viel Volks (As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today, Luther, 1535).To acknowledge and confess the sovereignty of God gave Luther peace that no matter what happens to me, God is in control because He has even counted the hair of my head. What minute knowledge is this! In a sermon on Exodus 15:2 Luther said:

If God is my Strenght and Power, who or what can do harm to me? Grief or tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword (Ro 8:35). Then I may confess, even if I am only a little worm, the power of God is with me (Ps 22:7; Is 41:14; Luther, 2015:55).3

To confess that He is sovereign with regard to health and sickness and life and death, is to confess with the words of Deuteronomy 32:39 that He alone is God and there is no god beside him, He kills and He makes alive; He wounds and He heals; and there is none that can deliver out of his hand. Luther‘s translation reads:

Seht ihr nun, daß ich’s allein bin und ist kein Gott neben Mir ! Ich kann töten und lebendig machen, ich kann schlagen und heilen, und ist niemand, der aus meiner Hand errette (Luther, 2001).

None lives and none dies but by God’s sovereign decree.

3My translation from the Dutch translation of selected Luther quotes in the publication of Den Hertog, organized according to the structure of the Heidelberg Catechism).

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Ultimately God controls the ability of people to hear or see, as he says to Moses at the burning bush, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Ex 4:11; see also 2 Cor 12:7-9).

Effects of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in our livesIn Luther’s understanding, true godliness is described as a child-like fear of God, (timor filialis) which is to be distinguished from the fear a slave has for his master (timor servilis). It is a combination of holy respect and glowing love (Exalto, 1993:152). To fear God is to have a heart that is sensitive to both his God-ness and his graciousness. It means to experience simultaneously great awe and a deep joy and produces peace in the heart of a child in the presence of a strong and loving father when you begin to understand who God really is and what He has done for us.It is a feeling of deep awe and respect about his magnitude. It gives the child of God a deep inner peace and calm. To fear God is to completely surrender one’s life to God and lose it, in order to regain it from God. It is fear that is in the same time confidence; surrender, as well as enthusiasm and boundless trust in God’s presence and leading in your life.In a sermon from Matthew 5:6 Luther made it clear that a real pious person who lives a godly life, are often not wealthy and does not serve God merely for the sake of receiving personal benefits and blessings. But those who use wrong means and goes along with lies and fraud often becomes extremely wealthy. He said:

In the sermon on the mount God warns us not to be misled by the examples of the world. Maintain true piety and fear God and don’t be disturbed by the progress in wealth of others in the world. You will receive God’s blessings in this life and have abundance in eternity. (Luther. 1544).

The results of true godliness are described as including transformed minds and hearts, words and actions, prayerfulness, and a life that continually grows into the image of Christ.

The importance of Luther’s Theology of the crossAt the Heildelberg disputation in 1518, Luther offered some important theses which encapsulate not only the heart of Luther's theology but also marked his piety:

19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20].20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.22. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened. (quoted by Trueman, 2005.)

Luther sees God's supreme revelation of himself through the humiliation, suffering and death on the cross, as axiomatic to all theology and all of life. God’s divine power is revealed in the weakness of the cross, for it is in his apparent defeat at the hands of evil powers and corrupt earthly authorities that Jesus shows his divine power in the conquest of death and of all the powers of evil. When most people think about power, they think of achievement, getting things done, being successful and be acknowledged. Luther makes it clear that if you think of God’s power in this way, you actually remake God in your own image. But divine power is to be conceived of in terms of the cross—power hidden in the form of weakness. God’s supreme wisdom is seen on the cross. The cross is not only the way God atones for our sins, but a revelation of the way God deals with the people he loves. The cross is the way that God works through everybody He loves, not just through the life of Jesus. The ultimate triumph of good over evil is that when evil happens, God uses it for good. That was what the cross was all about. Luther reveals that God allows bad things happen to good people because He blesses them through it. In a sermon from John 15:1 where Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” Luther exclaimed “And you Devil is just the dung...” and then explained how God uses the evil of the Devil to work out the good in those who look to the cross of Christ in faith (Luther, 1544).

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A revitalization and rekindling of this kind of piety may fill one of the greatest gaps in PT, namely the peace of God that transcends all understanding and is not dependent on health, wealth and happiness as promoted by PT preachers.

Main trends in Luther’s Hermeneutics.In considering the way that the Bible is used and interpreted in PT circles, it is important to stress the supreme and final authority and the sufficiency of Scriptures as the primary way the will of God for the lives of Christians is revealed.Luther clearly had a burning desire in his heart to get the Word of God into the hands of the people. He not only translated the Bible into the language of the people, but laid down key principles concerning its interpretation (Dockery, 1983:190). Realising that there was no unanimity among the Church Fathers except in the most basic doctrines, Luther preferred the Scriptures in contrast to the early writings of the Fathers.Although Luther in the early years of his ministry was still functioning within the constraints of the medieval fourfold method, applying it more “intensively” and more “on principle” than other exegetes of his time, the conviction that the historical/literal sense of Scriptures alone is the essence of faith and Christian theology. He observed that heresies and errors originated not from the simple words of Scripture but primarily from the neglect of those words. He eventually fundamentally shifted the ground of the fourfold approach by arguing that the literal sense is already a Christological sense (Leithart, 2007). The “I” of the Psalms - even the penitential Psalms - is Christ, and from this Christological-literal sense, Luther developed the other senses so that they uncover a theology of the cross embedded in the text. Farrar (as quoted by Dockery, 1983:191) summarizes Luther’s basic rules for valid interpretation as follows:

He insisted (1) on the necessity for grammatical knowledge; (2) on the importance of taking into consideration times, circumstances, and conditions; (3) on the observance of the context; (4) on the need of faith and spiritual illumination; (5) on keeping what he called “the proportion of faith”; and (6) on the reference of all Scripture to Christ.

In order to stop unbridled, speculative, and fanciful interpretations of Scripture, the Reformers set forth the fundamental axiom that should govern all biblical interpretation. It is called the analogy of faith, which basically means that Holy Scripture is its own interpreter.This principle of interpretation implies that clearer passages of Scripture should be used to interpret more obscure or difficult passages. Thus, the analogy of faith is the harmonious relationship between the overall teachings of Scripture brought to bear on the exegesis of particular passages. For Luther, Christ is the analogy of faith, so that Scripture needs always to be interpreted as testifying to Christ. When it is accepted that the Bible is the Word of God, Luther and the Reformers expected the entire Bible to be coherent, intelligible, and unified. On this basis the reformation principle: Sacra Scriptura sui interpres, (Scripture is its own interpreter) developed.

ConclusionsSome of the “unpaid debts” that may have prepared a seedbed for PT are the following:A lack of a Theology of the cross in the footsteps of Luther lead to a “theology of glory” focusing on human effort intended to earn God's favour and blessings, and exalted human achievement. Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde puts it like this:

A theology of glory … operates on the assumption that what we need is optimistic encouragement, some flattery, some positive thinking, some support to build our self-esteem. Theologically speaking it operates on the assumption that we are not seriously addicted to sin, and that our improvement is both necessary and possible. We need a little boost in our desire to do good works…. But the hallmark of a theology of glory is that it will always consider grace as something of a supplement to whatever is left of human will and power. (As quoted by Tchividjian, 2012).

Trueman says with regard to the implications of Luther’s Theology of the cross that as:An antidote to sentimentality, prosperity doctrine, and an excessively worldly eschatology, this is theological gold dust (Trueman, 2005).

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A lack of genuine submission to the sovereignty of God and humble trust in his omnipotent providence, also in the midst of suffering, opens a wide door for acceptance of PT’s pursuit of health, wealth and happiness.Revisiting Luther’s basic rules for valid interpretation may provide an antidote for the widespread drift into Gnosticism or New Gnosticism, and mere emotional, experienced based applications that bypass or twists the truth of Scripture.

Acknowledgements

Competing interestsThe author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.

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Key TermsProsperity GospelGnosticismMartin LutherMysticismTheology of the crossTheology of gloryHealth, wealth and happiness

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